Thanks to a new service offered by Google, a user can find out if his Internet Service Provider (ISP) is messing with his connection performance. The company’s online tools will diagnose your network connection. Google’s broadband test tools are located at Measurementlab.net.

 

If you click on the icon that says “Users: Test Your Internet Connection,” you will be taken to a page where there are three tests available, and two more listed as coming soon. For example, Glasnost, which is second on the list, will check if your ISP is slowing down or blocking Peer2Peer (P2P) downloads from software such as BitTorrent.

 

It’s well known that P2P apps are commonly used for downloading illegal software and media content like playing movies and music, but they are also used for legal purposes as well, such as distributing large software packages to many users at once. In order to use the service, you’ll need the latest version of Java installed. Furthermore, you might want to stop any large downloads that you have running before you begin the test.

 

On a Mac, a popup message will prompt you to trust the site’s Java applet. Users get to choose between a full test (7 minutes long) and a simple one (4 minutes). For now, the servers at Glasnost are quite busy, but Google promised to deal with the matter in the next couple of days.

 

M-Labs is the result of a collaboration between New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and Planet Lab Consortium, academic researchers and Google itself. Google also says that the project does not touch on Net neutrality issues, as everyone can agree that Internet users deserve to be well-informed about their broadband service.